These types of treatment devices for dental material include stationary devices, such as polymerization devices, which operate with light and/or heat and are used for polymerizing a dental restoration material from a polymerizable plastic. However, these types of treatment devices also include compression ovens or burning ovens or kilns. These types of dental devices or dental material treatment devices generally have a program or software control, which controls the various operating states, such as pre-compression or post-compression with burning ovens or kilns, the heating or cool-down phase in burning oven or kilns, or different phases of the dispersion of the polymerization radiation in polymerization devices.
In larger dental laboratories, usually many corresponding dental devices are provided. In this connection, it is known to signal the corresponding operating state with an acoustic or also an optical signal.
One recent example is provided disclosed in US 20010023056 A1. With this design of a program-controlled dental device, the end of the firing cycle is signaled via a light diode and a buzzer, both of which are mounted in an operator panel below and in front on the burning oven or kiln. An acoustic alarm is provided when an operator is to be notified of the end of a process. Often, however, such an alarm does not make possible the association to the device emitting the alarm, and, therefore, it does not make possible the quick detection of the actual operating state.
In addition, it has been proposed to signal the operating temperature, for example of a specialized burning oven or kiln, via so-called teleindication, or also to signal the expected time until the end of the firing cycle via characters. However, it was shown that a plurality of such digitally-represented information only detects or processes a minimal number of burning ovens or kilns, for example three kilns. If a plurality of kilns, for example 20 kilns, or also other dental treatment devices, are operated together, it is practically impossible to detect the digitally prepared information from a distance; especially with two different and similar pieces of information, a mistake can occur. These types of digital displays are relatively expensive to realize, in particular if, despite a projecting arrangement, they are to be protected.
A further disadvantage of such displays is that their visibility depends greatly on ambient illumination. For example, white characters on a black background are relatively difficult to recognize in daylight, while orange or red characters are relatively difficult to recognize where illumination is with incandescent light. Thus, such tele-indicators are not widely used, and it was already proposed to rely on acoustic signals, which are different depending on the burning oven or kiln or other dental device. On the other hand, such signals are easily mistaken for an alarm, and the alarm function is limited by a plurality of other acoustic signals that serve merely for information purposes.